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The USS Hornet may be a decommissioned aircraft carrier, yet it has nevertheless become the launch-site for a controversial new war in the skies. The Marine Cloud Brightening Program's Coastal Atmospheric Aerosol Research and Engagement project, led by researchers from the University of Washington, took to the deck of the Hornet Tuesday to launch streams of particles into the sky above the San Francisco Bay. Their ultimate objective is apparently to block and reflect sunlight in hopes of limiting "global warming." CAARE researchers behind the geoengineering scheme opted not to announce their experiment, reportedly citing concerns that there might be...

What if I told you that there was an actual CONSPIRACY going on? A research experiment that they kept hidden from the public because they were afraid of a backlash. Because that is exactly what has been going on. And keep reading to the end, because you will never be able to guess who has been involved in this project… From the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the San Francisco Bay, researchers from the University of Washington LAUNCHED trillions of salt particles into the atmosphere with the intent of blocking out the sunlight from earth. This is all...

Health officials in Connecticut have issued a warning about fentanyl-laced marijuana, which is being eyed in a rash of overdoses throughout the state. Since July, 39 overdoses requiring the use of naloxone for revival have been reported. In each case, the person involved said they had only smoked marijuana, but officials said they exhibited opioid symptoms... ..."This is the first lab-confirmed case of marijuana with fentanyl in Connecticut and possibly the first confirmed case in the United States," said Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani. The warning comes amid news that an estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug...

A photograph of a damaged Allied ship after the Luftwaffe raid of Bari Harbour, Italy, December 2, 1943. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Before the atomic bomb came along, chemical weapons were the ultimate red line – the boundary between supposedly civilised warfare and unrestrained barbarism. Even before their horrors were first unleashed on a large scale in World War I, nations had sought to ban the use of “poison weapons.” After approximately 90,000 were killed by gas warfare during World War I, the moral and legal revulsion intensified. Numerous solemn proclamations and protocols were created in which civilised nations pledged never...

...over 44 pounds of fentanyl in an Ohio drug bust, a quantity large enough to wipe out the state's entire population "many times over," officials revealed Wednesday...In addition...,...some 1,500 grams of suspected methamphetamine, 500 grams of suspected heroin, three firearms and $30,000...three suspects -- Shamar Davis, 31, Anthony Franklin, 30, and Grady Jackson, 37.

The attack on Syria’s chemical weapon facilities was not merely aimed at Syria – it was also a message aimed at any nation/entity that might be considering the use of chemical weapons It says something very profound about the horrors of chemical warfare that even given the inherent insanity of war the use of gas is universally considered beyond the pale. The civilized nations of the world agree – chemical warfare is anathema, no exceptions. Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and namesake of the famous “Nobel Prize,” thought that the use of dynamite in war would be so catastrophic that...

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday voiced alarm over the growing “alienation” between Russia and the West, stressing the need for dialogue as post-Cold War tensions peak. Speaking to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, Steinmeier said last month’s poisoning of a former Russian spy in England, which Britain and its allies blame on Moscow, was “a very serious incident”. “But we should be at least as worried about the galloping alienation between Russia and the West, the consequences of which stretch far beyond this case,” the former foreign minister said. Moscow vehemently denies involvement in the nerve agent poisoning of...

“After failing to defeat the SPLA-IO forces with regular weapons, the Juba government Militias under the command Governor John Gony Biliew of Akobo State and Majiok Gatluak Thoa of Bieh State used poisonous gas that blindfolds, weakens, makes someone loses focus and causes sneezing while attacking SPLA-IO positions and civilians in the IDP Camps,” Gabriel said the gas use has been systematic, saying, “This criminal acts of cowardice by the Juba Government started on 11th April 2017 in Yuai, proceeded to Waat on 14/04/2017 and still going on with an aim of reaching Akobo.”

Appalling images of Syrian babies gasping for breath and others foaming at the mouth after the Damascus regime hit a rebel-held town with chemical weapons has stunned the world. But people were almost as stunned last week that Syria still had chemical weapons because the Kremlin in June 2014 had vouched publicly for their complete eradication. One man who certainly wasn’t stunned that Syria had such weapons and would use them was Syrian Brig. Gen. Zaher al-Sakat, once the Bashar regime’s chemical weapons chief in charge of such operations. In an interview this week with Fox News, Sakat remained steadfast...

A volley of U.S. cruise missiles had barely been launched into Syria before the Internet filled up with fact-free theories about the real reason for an international crisis. A popular one on the right-most fringes: The U.S. government actually carried out the chemical weapons massacre in Syria last week — a “false flag” to trick President Trump into retaliating, thus entangling himself in a foreign war. A slightly more convoluted strain on the left: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the chemical weapons massacre to help Trump — distracting Americans from an investigation into Trump's campaign ties to Russia by provoking...

It’s hard being a woman in this world. We get silenced, pushed aside, ignored, paid less, denied care, called names, and a million and one other bad things. We have to work twice as hard and get paid two thirds as much as our male counterparts to survive in the dog eats dog world. We climb some ladder that inevitably has a white man at the top who, at best, wants to look down your shirt, and at worst, doesn’t care that you were ever born and might accidentally step down hard with his fancy, shiny shoes on the rung...

Barack Obama’s plan for military intervention in Syria was abruptly derailed by David Cameron and British members of parliament, US secretary of state John Kerry claimed on Thursday. The American president said he would bomb the Syrian regime if it used chemical weapons but he did not follow through on his promise. The failure to enforce his stated “red line” after President Bashar al-Assad used sarin gas in a Damascus suburb in August 2013 is seen by some as the worst stain on Obama’s legacy. The British parliament’s vote against air strikes has long been cited by Obama and others...

Many questioned Barack Obama’s judgment when he backed away from his own “red line” in Syria, but Chuck Hagel tells Foreign Policy in an exclusive interview that it was actually worse than that. Obama lost his nerve, Hagel alleges, calling off promised strikes on Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Hagel also says that Obama’s team then stabbed him in the back as he was heading for the exits, and tried to “destroy me”: Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an...

The comments follow allegations by Iraqi Kurdish authorities that they have evidence that ISIS used chlorine gas against their peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq. PERTH - Islamic State militants have used chlorine as a weapon and are recruiting highly trained technicians in a serious bid to develop chemical weapons, Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned. In a speech to an international forum of nations that works to fight the spread of such weapons, Bishop said the rise of militant groups such as ISIS, also known as Daish, posed “one of the gravest security threats we face today.” “Apart from some...

Boys, move the goalposts. If you’re having trouble keeping track of all the promises, threats, and “red lines” that Obama has applied to Syria and Assad, you’re not alone. There have been so many that things tend to get confusing. However, one constant through it all has been a warning that, if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, it would trigger a US military response. Now we have widespread reports of the Assad regime deploying weaponized chlorine gas. So, if you’re a President who’s absolutely terrified of backing up his own proclamations with actual action, what are you to do?...

Widespread reports of chlorine gas attacks in Syria have not been prevented - or acted upon - because chlorine is not "historically" considered a chemical weapon, US President Barack Obama stated Thursday. Obama was forced to answer the chlorine question during a press conference from a summit at Camp David with leaders of the Gulf states. Syria and Iran were key issues at the conference.

A few weeks ago, the US Central Command announced that an air raid had killed an ISIS chemical weapon expert in Mosul. The ISIS operative, Iraqi engineer Mahmoud al-Sabawi, used to work at Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program before he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 US led invasion. The idea that ISIS terrorists have access to chemical weapons brings back images of the genocide inflicted on the Kurds by Saddam Hussein in the late 1980’s. The Halabja Massacre killed up to 5,000 and injured between 7,000 and 10,000 more. If ISIS jihadists have a stash of chemical weapons,...

President Vladimir Putin hopes to send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to the United States to discuss the situation in Syria with members of Congress, the Interfax news agency reported Monday. Russian legislators Valentina Matvienko and Sergei Naryshkin proposed that to Putin, saying polls have shown little support among Americans for armed intervention in Syria to punish President Bashar Assad's regime for an alleged chemical weapons attack. The lawmakers said maybe U.S. legislators can be persuaded to take a "balanced stance" on the issue....

John Kerry, the American secretary of state, has said that the United States now has evidence of sarin gas use in Syria and said "the case gets stronger by the day" for a military attack. President Bashar al-Assad, he said, "has now joined the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein" in deploying chemical weapons against his population. A day after President Barack Obama stepped back from his threat to launch an attack, Mr Kerry said in a series of interviews on the Sunday news shows that the administration had learnt of the sarin use within the past 24 hours...

"Humane killer" appears to be an oxymoron that startles with contradiction. Yet talking of war is a way of drawing a fine distinction, not a contradiction. The civilized world clarifies an understanding of how a civilized man can kill an enemy while separating human from inhumane. When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned poison gas against the rebels and their families, everyone could agree that even in a civil war -- where passions burn hottest -- that's inhumane, and it's not forgivable. The harsh and mechanical reporting of war rarely invites poetry to make a correspondent's points, but a reader with...